


The Conductor of Light

by days_of_storm



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drama, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Love, M/M, Pre-Slash, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:12:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/days_of_storm/pseuds/days_of_storm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John knows that he has nothing on Sherlock's deductive powers, but apparently he is still essential; to both Sherlock's work and his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Conductor of Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [semioticsofdeduction](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=semioticsofdeduction).



Sherlock sometimes stopped. It happened rarely, but it happened, and it always happened when John was speaking.

It was usually difficult to even get a word in when Sherlock was talking and more than once Sherlock narrated an event for ten minutes to reach a conclusion only to notice that John looked slightly annoyed and nodded curtly, saying that it was what he had been trying to tell him all along. Other times he asked for John’s opinion; usually not because John would come to the right conclusions, but because John’s wrong conclusions helped him to look at things from another – _naïve_ , _stupid_ or simply _uninformed_ – angle. He had called him a conductor of light once, something which had come as close to a declaration of love as Sherlock would probably ever get with anyone in this world. More often than not when John wanted to walk out on Sherlock he recalled that moment in time. It didn’t always help, but he was getting better at staying.

Lately, though, Sherlock occasionally stopped. Even when he listened to him, John could usually tell that he was already thinking miles ahead of him, knitting John’s words into the pattern his brain was producing for him. But every now and then, he would listen to John, and he wouldn’t think. It was strange, because it never seemed to make a difference to Sherlock’s deductions, but John could tell that his wheels stopped churning for a moment, and he would just look at him.

In those moments, John always prayed that Sherlock didn’t notice him noticing. Sherlock usually got upset when John enquired about his brain work and possible weaknesses connected to it and to ask him for a reason would rub him the wrong way.

But this time it was painfully obvious. Sherlock had asked John about his thoughts on the handwriting on a letter – a call for help – which he had received, and while John leaned over him to have a closer look, he could feel Sherlock simply stopping; and as if to make up for the lack of internal movement, John’s heart took up speed.

He cleared his throat and moved away again, underlining his short list of ideas with a shrug. Only when Sherlock started speaking again did John manage to relax. This was getting ridiculous, but he had seen it happen to others a million times. When Sherlock turned his full attention on someone it simply affected them. And it affected John, only in a desperately awkward way that seemed completely out of line considering how well they knew each other and how long they had lived together now.

John found himself watching Sherlock more closely, too. He started counting the times when Sherlock stopped; when he switched from thinking to observing. Somehow his brain was still able to pick up what John said, but in this moment John was sure that he could have talked complete rubbish and Sherlock wouldn’t have noticed right away. The thought irritated him and if he was honest with himself, it scared him.

Despite the awkwardness that came with it, it meant that he distracted Sherlock. It meant that if push came to shove, Sherlock might be vulnerable in the wrong moment. It meant that John grew more self-conscious with each time, wondering if something was wrong with his face – or with Sherlock head. He spent more time than usual looking at himself in the mirror, trying to find what might be the reason for Sherlock’s sporadically strange behaviour.

Sherlock’s head seemed fine; at least he never had any glitches at crime scenes and the handful of mistakes he made were just exceptions that proved the rule; in this case they proved that Sherlock was after all a human being and not infallible.   

The third option John pushed as far away from his consciousness as he could. He had long since given up pretending to not be endlessly fascinated with Sherlock; but to even imagine that Sherlock could return that feeling made John’s heart do funny things and he preferred not to dwell on it for longer than the occasional split second in which it surfaced before he wrestled it back to where it had come from.

“Come back here,” Sherlock ordered, pulling John out of his thoughts. “Touch it and tell me how it feels.”

John would have laughed if he had not spent the last minute staring at Sherlock, trying to forget what colour Sherlock’s eyes had in the dim evening light. He moved to stand next to Sherlock, kicking himself mentally, forcing himself back into confidence and ease. Managing to regain his composure he smiled. “Whoever wrote this pressed down hard enough to leave an invisible copy of the text on whatever lay underneath the paper.”

Sherlock gasped audibly, and John’s hard-earned indifference was out of the window. And yet Sherlock's voice didn’t betray his spontaneous reaction in the slightest. “So there is still hope for you,” he smiled at John in a way that he could only describe as fondly. And when did that happen?

“So you think you’re not the only one who got this letter and therefore believe that whoever wrote this plea for help is trying to lure you into a trap.”

“John, I could kiss you!” Sherlock jumped up and gently squeezed his upper arm and for a split second John thought that he might actually lean in and do good on his suggestion; but then he sobered up and stepped away, walking into the kitchen only to return again with a grin on his face and a plastic bag in his hands which held something that looked suspiciously like patches of skin.

“Go get your coat. And take your gun. I’ve been waiting for this to happen. Finally!” Sherlock was positively beaming and John had to drag his eyes away from him to keep from stupidly grinning along with him.

The case, as Sherlock called it – though apparently the police knew nothing of the tattoo smugglers which Sherlock claimed to have been searching for for years – was not as dangerous as John had feared. When they showed up a handful of men were just about to flay an unconscious woman with a large dragon tattoo on her back, but as soon as Sherlock showed up, three of the five men simply fled without so much as a rude gesture, leaving the other two men who held scalpels to be dealt with.

As many times before, John’s gun proved to be the strongest argument in that discussion, and once the men had dropped the instruments, Sherlock cuffed each of them to a stretcher in a similar fashion in which the woman was secured by her wrists and ankles. When Sherlock was done with them, he grabbed the gun from John and went after the other three men, telling John to stay put. John wanted to yell at him to be careful, but he knew that it would only make Sherlock more reckless.

Instead he checked the vitals on the woman and loosened her straps, finding a robe into which he could wrap her. Then he simply waited. He started to worry in earnest when he heard sirens in the distance and a few minutes later, Lestrade, followed by Sergeant Donnovan and a few others, rushed into the building, arresting the two men who remained silent throughout the ordeal. Only after the woman had been wheeled away to an ambulance John remembered to ask about the other three men.

Lestrade laughed and shook his head. “Sherlock’s outside. He’s got a bloody nose and a few bruises, but he was quite impressively fending for himself.”

“He did what?”

“Yeah, he got into a proper fist fight with the three of them. Though, I can’t really call it a fist fight. Some of those moves were more on the Ninja side of things.” He snorted at the apparently immensely entertaining memory and then patted John’s back. “He’s fine otherwise. Don’t worry about him.”

“As if I could ever stop worrying,” John murmured, shrugging when Lestrade looked at him questioningly. “He’s such a bloody idiot sometimes I am amazed he has lived this long.”

“I heard that,” Sherlock’s voice came from his left, causing John to sigh and Lestrade to stand up straighter.

“You two can go. I’ve got all the facts from Sherlock,” he nodded into the direction of the approaching disgruntled consulting detective. “I’ll see you around.”

“Sure, Greg. And sorry about not getting word to you sooner, I had no idea about any of this until two hours ago.”

“Never mind that,” Lestrade walked away with a wave before Sherlock had reached them.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Sherlock pushed his hands into the pockets of his coat.

He knew better than to chide him now. Sherlock’s left cheek was slowly turning blue and his lower lip was swollen where one of the men must have hit him. Without a word, John walked towards the door, not looking back but knowing that Sherlock would follow.

They didn’t speak until they were home and John had made tea. There were no happy grins and exuberant gestures and when John handed him a pack of frozen peas he did not object and pressed it against his face.

“Why did you do that?”

“I’m sorry.”

They both had spoken at the same time and John had to smile. “Alright. You go.”

“I needed to see whether the patches matched them.”

“You think those things you had in that bag were skin samples of those men?”

“I know now,” Sherlock finally dared to grin, making John shake his head. “It was part of the initiation to the ring, only that those samples got … lost.”  

“You could have waited for them to be arrested and checked then?” John suggested, finding that his logic clearly superior to Sherlock’s.

“If I hadn’t involved them in a fight they would have gotten away. There was a truck outside and they almost made it.” He allowed himself another small grin.

“And you’re still sorry? Why?”

Sherlock frowned and stayed silent.

John sighed and put down his mug. “Where is my gun?”

“Oh,” Sherlock seemed to be ripped out of deep thought, which irritated John a bit. That he had apologised was in itself a small miracle, but that he actually thought about the fact that he seemed to feel the need to apologise was downright strange. “It’s in my coat.”

John remembered vaguely that Sherlock had walked into his room first thing when they had returned, and had been without his coat when he had come out again. At least he hadn’t lost it, so that wasn’t the reason for his apology then.

“Do you need me to look at your bruises? Did you hurt anything else?”

“No, I’m fine. Most of it is dirt anyway. I’ll have a shower and things will look half as dire, I promise,” he smiled again, but it wasn’t a real smile and John felt strangely upset by the fact.

“You sure you okay? You seem a little off lately.” He hadn’t meant to say it, but now it was too late to take the words back.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Sherlock frowned, looking actually interested for a minute before he stood up and took off his jacket. “I’ll be in the shower,” he announced and disappeared in his room.

John sighed and leaned back in his chair. Something _was_ the matter with Sherlock, and he would be a rubbish friend if he didn’t try to find out what he could do to help. But now he was gone, off to wash the guilt of going rogue off his conscience and John was left to put away the dishes and marvel at Sherlock’s strange behaviour.

After he had tidied the living room as much as he could, he decided to get his gun while Sherlock was in the shower. He could clean it before going to bed. It always helped him to calm down, to focus on every little familiar movement; monotony and familiarity, things he sometimes desperately missed, especially now when he felt somewhat less at home in Sherlock’s presence.

The shower was still going when he walked into Sherlock’s room. He had left the door to his bedroom open, and the light from the hall with the light that fell through the frosted glass of the bathroom door was bright enough for John to immediately find Sherlock’s coat, thrown over the back of a chair. Part of the coat was covered by Sherlock’s clothes, neatly folded despite the stains. John swallowed when he saw Sherlock’s pants peek out from underneath his trousers. He must have stripped naked before entering the bathroom, he figured, feeling heat rising to his ears. If he had followed him just seconds after he had left the living room, he would have walked in on him just as he stepped out of his underwear.

John was shocked by how clear the mental image was that he saw in this moment. And not just the clarity shocked him; but the sinking feeling of having missed a chance. “Jesus,” he muttered, rubbing his face.

Just as he lifted the coat to reach into its pocket the water stopped; and so did John’s movement. He knew that if he didn’t stand right in front of the bathroom door, he wouldn’t be seen; and Sherlock couldn’t possibly have heard him while the water was running. So he let go of the coat and took a step back, peering through the frosted glass which, with the bathroom light shining brightly, didn’t do much to obscure the view of the lean naked form standing in the middle of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel.

He saw a dark silhouette against the bright tiles, the dip of the small of his back leading down to Sherlock’s arse, which, considering Sherlock’s slender figure, had no right to be this lush. His stomach was flat, and John knew that he was lean and toned under those unassuming silk shirts. His legs seemed endless and John swallowed hard as he found himself stepping closer to the door, watching Sherlock’s shape grow sharper, more details revealing themselves in the light.

A panicked voice in his head screamed at him to run and hide, but he couldn’t move. Any moment now Sherlock would come out of the bathroom and find him there, staring. The notion made John’s knees buckle. What if, in all of this madness, Sherlock had been going through the exact same process that he found himself being dragged into right at this moment? He stopped functioning; at least for a while and no matter how adamant that voice in his head was that all of this was incredibly wrong and creepy and could only end in embarrassment, he was sure that in this moment he would give his right arm to see Sherlock like this without the glass obscuring his view.

Sherlock stopped rubbing his head with the towel and started on his body. John swallowed audibly when Sherlock turned and leaned over and he had to close his eyes to keep from making a sound that would undoubtedly give him away.

When he opened his eyes again he saw that Sherlock was one second away from opening the door. In this moment he felt what Sherlock must feel when suddenly everything culminated into one clear answer in his brain. He became painfully aware that he must have been visible now, standing too close to the door, unmoving, watching, creeping on his flatmate in the most cowardly manner he could imagine. He also realised that he wouldn’t be able to lie to Sherlock if he asked him why. He wanted to see him naked. But was it really that simple? Was he just worried that something had happened? Had he unconsciously wanted to know whether Sherlock had kept any injuries from him? Was he really this obsessed with his flatmate’s health? Or his friend’s? Or the health of the one person he admired more than any other person he had met in his life? Or was it simply lust? Was it because he hadn’t so much as touched another person in months? Or was it because he hadn’t touched another person in months because he hadn’t wanted to because he had wanted to touch someone he was sure he would never be allowed to touch? Which one of those things was true? What would he tell Sherlock? He still had a split second to step away; to pretend he had been looking for his gun; to retreat; to run away and never come back.

The door opened and John closed his eyes again. Silence.

John opened his eyes again slowly, pretending not to take in the body whose middle was covered by a towel which rode low on narrow hips. When he reached Sherlock’s face he found his breath knocked out of him. Sherlock wasn’t shocked. He wasn’t disgusted, appalled or surprised. He looked insecure, vulnerable as he had only looked when he knew he didn’t understand something essential and needed John’s help to understand it. Even the bruise didn’t obscure that expression.

The frightening feeling that his lungs might burst made John exhale shakily. He hadn’t noticed that he had been holding his breath, but once he let it out, most of his panic went with it. Sherlock, in contrast, seemed to grow shyer by the second; so much so that he eventually dropped his gaze, his ears burning. For a moment John’s world shook, and then settled again in a slightly different angle. He knew Sherlock fairly well, and even though he didn’t understand him most of the time, he could read the most basic emotions without fail. And yet, he had never seen Sherlock bashful, not truly. Not in the confinement of their home and because of something that only concerned them.

Another exhale, this time less shaky. “You wanted to me to watch you.” John only realised the truth of it when he said it and Sherlock didn’t react apart from blushing more deeply.

For a few long heartbeats, neither of them spoke. Then it dawned on John just how elaborate Sherlock’s plot had been. “You put your coat here just to make sure that I’d come in here; and you made sure that you’d be in the shower when I did?”

Sherlock looked up at him from under his eyelashes and John found that being centre of Sherlock’s attention was anything but bad. His voice was hushed when he spoke, as if he was afraid that more than a whisper might cause some misfortune; possibly he was afraid to scare John off. “I had to see whether I was right.”

“Right about what?”

“That you _wanted_ to watch me. I know you would never have asked to or made a move on your own so I had to create circumstances under which you wouldn’t consciously decide on it.”

John ignored the glaring fact that Sherlock had somehow managed to turn this into a study and leaned in closer, just a fraction, feeling something in his stomach dissolve when Sherlock didn’t move away. “Oh, I was very conscious of my decision.”

“You were?”

“You already know,” John looked down on himself trying not to feel overly self-conscious about his tight trousers.

“I didn’t,” Sherlock answered, and John was sure he could see him shake just the slightest bit. “I have no … experience in this field.”

John bit back a giggle and took half a step forward, “tell me about it.”

Sherlock frowned and John shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut for a second. “No, that came out wrong. What I meant to say is that I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“You’re just standing here,” Sherlock pointed out and suddenly it was John who felt the urge to kiss him. He recalled Sherlock’s enthusiastic exclamation from earlier.

“Did you mean it, when you said you could kiss me? And no smart arse answers about the general ability to kiss anyone and everyone.”

Sherlock’s blush grew even deeper and he bit his lip, scrolling back in his memory to the moment when he had said that. Then he nodded.

“You could, you know? Just to see how it works?”

“Oh, I know how it…”

“Oh, shut up,” John chuckled. “I mean us. This,” he waved his hand between them.

Sherlock nodded. He was definitely shaking now, but John couldn’t claim that he was entirely calm either. He rose to his toes, praying for a second that Sherlock would not decide now that he didn’t want this after all; but when he felt Sherlock’s lips against his, he felt elated and at the same time scared out of his mind about what this would mean for them; for their friendship, for their weird indescribable relationship. _A definition_ , his brain supplied as John closed the remaining distance and deepened the kiss.

When Sherlock flinched, he pulled back, remembering that Sherlock’s lower lip had been injured earlier. “Sorry,” he grinned, seeing Sherlock mirroring his expression.

“It’ll heal.”

“So,” John bit his lip. “I guess you should go and put on some clothes. I can’t have you catch a cold after all of this.”

When Sherlock shrugged and handed him the towel, John tried his hardest not to look; but as soon as Sherlock had passed him his eyes dropped. “Lord have mercy,” John murmured.

“I heard that, too,” Sherlock said, making John grin.

“Can’t say I’m sorry,” John heard himself say, and then they both giggled, relief finally setting in.

Sherlock pulled on his pyjama bottoms and an old t-shirt which he put on inside out, making John’s fingers itch to put it right, and slipped into bed.

“John?” Sherlock looked much more serious now. “I am sorry for going after them alone. I know that they would have escaped if I hadn’t, but I know how you hate it when I do that.”

“If they would have trapped you they might have skinned you,” John pointed out.

Sherlock seemed to think about that option for the first time and made a face. “I don’t have a tattoo.”

“You have gorgeous skin, though,” John pointed out, glad that in the dim light Sherlock wouldn’t be able to tell that he was blushing.

“Is my humour rubbing off on you?” Sherlock smirked.

“What humour?” John countered, deciding that despite it all, this evening surely had to be one of the greatest in his life, especially considering it was the first of many other evenings that would follow.

Sherlock snorted and then fluffed up his pillow, something which John knew he shouldn’t find endearing.

“Good night, then,” he murmured.

“Good night, John.”

John switched off the light in the bathroom and closed the door. Then he pulled Sherlock’s coat from the chair and dug in its pockets for his gun. It wasn’t there.

“Sherlock?”

“Hmm?”

“Where is my gun?”

“In the drawer of the desk, where it belongs,” Sherlock said quietly.

“You made sure I’d try and talk to you if I hadn’t forgotten what I came for?”

“A plan B is always useful.”

“You don’t usually have a plan B.”

“Only for cases that I really want to solve,” Sherlock pulled up the covers to his nose, half hiding from John.

“Thank you,” John walked to the bed and leaned over, pulling the cover away from Sherlock’s face and pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Sherlock nodded and then pulled the covers back up, but John could still see the happy grin that lit up Sherlock’s face.

 

Sherlock sometimes stops. It happens rarely, but it happens, and when it happens it usually means that Sherlock wants John to kiss him. He never really asks for it, and John appreciates that he has to deduce it; because it’s one of those things that he always and doubtlessly gets right.

 

 

 


End file.
